There has been common thinking that go around that poor people always have factors that influence their poverty. but I reality poverty has its own origin and people have created common myths about the poor, some believe that if you are poor it’s all about not working hard, that poor people are the less fortunate and are the minorities, some conclude by thinking that being poor one can get special advantages. Poverty has gained its root in many countries but due to the circumstances that poor people are in, human beings have ended up originating with myths concerning the poor people in the world. This document seeks to explain six common myths about the poor people living in the world.
Poor people are lazy and refuse to work. Although people judge the poor that they are lazy and not able to work but a research conducted by the national centre for children with poverty in the year 2004 proved that 83%of young boys and girls coming from families who earn low income have at least father or a mother being employed. Another 60% of the same children their parents work full time in their work places in the entire year. But in relation to that the economic institute policy (2002) prove that poor working adults do spend most of their years working than rich people, this implies that in as much as one can judge poor people as lazy but the fact remains that the rich rich spend less hours working. Another myth is the poor people are single mother. This is a complete myth since majority of single mothers have good jobs and work to earn a living. Research shows that thirty percent of single mother are from broken relationships and they live above the poverty line. Thirdly a misconception about poor people is that only a few number of individual who are poor try to fight poverty. The fact is that most of the poor people struggle very much and try to work in order to sustain their needs. Of course when situation don not bring good results we conclude that poor people do not try to work it out.
Another misconception about the poor is that they are the minorities. The fact is that the minority is not the poor but even in America research showed that the white consist of the biggest minority group that lives in America. Census was carried out in 2012 and showed that over 18.9 million of the non Hispanic whites were living in America while Hispanics who were around 13.6 million and over 10.9 million blacks were living in poverty. This concludes that the minority are not the poor. Another misconception about the poor is that, they spend a lot of their cash on drugs and engage in abusive acts. The fact is that usage of drugs cuts across the rich and the poor. A research was conducted by the national institute on alcohol abuse and alcoholism and showed that there is no discernible difference drug use. This shows that anyone in the society can abuse drugs or spend their cash on drugs, lastly people are concluded that majority of older people are poor but studies have proved that specifically in America, the older people are 13.6 % and only 10% of them are poor. This signifies that majority are not poor.
In conclusion, the myths about poor people are mere thoughts and conclusion of people’s idea and views. Being poor does not mean one is lazy, or has refused to work but it just shows the condition of a person. Being poor is not all about people thinking that the minority group are the one living in poverty but a larger group of a state can be below the poverty level. All this misconception is mainly generated by a person or a group of people who judge the poor by their state of live or ethnic boundaries.
